


Satellites

by DrowningByDegrees, vibraniumkink



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Banter, Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2017, Fluff, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Teasing, Top Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-03 05:38:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10960827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrowningByDegrees/pseuds/DrowningByDegrees, https://archiveofourown.org/users/vibraniumkink/pseuds/vibraniumkink
Summary: “You’re going to make me regret saying that, aren’t you?” Steve asked when Bucky let go to open the door. Of course, that didn’t keep him from stepping through the door after his lover.“Oh…” Bucky leaned in, and for a minute, Steve could hardly think. Somehow, the exaggerated slowness with which Bucky caught his mouth only made Steve’s heart race faster. It was lazy and languid, Bucky’s lips slotting against his like they’d been made to fit. Steve’s eyes slid shut as Bucky’s fingertips skittered down the ridge of his spine, drawing them subtly closer. Bucky pulled back just enough to speak. “Absolutely.”





	Satellites

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much NurseDarry and CryoBucky for being awesome betas and to Majorkoalatea for a whole hell of a lot of cheerleading <3

It was a strange thing, Steve thought, how deeply one’s circumstances could rewrite the way they lived. 

 

The first time… the first how many dozens of times had been very much the same. They fell into each other with all the frantic need that soldiers had sometimes to drive away the realities of war beyond their tents. The graceful precision Steve had so quickly mastered under the influence of Erskine’s serum seemed utterly lost in moments like this when their teeth and lips crashed clumsily together. Their hands pawed at muddy uniforms, heedless of the blood and grime long since set in the fabric. All that mattered was the flesh beneath, warm despite the frigid air outside. 

 

If there had been any semblance of conversation between the way their bodies had moved together, Steve couldn’t remember anymore. It didn’t seem important. Nothing they could have said would have held much weight in the moment. What he remembered was the rise and fall of Bucky’s torso as his fingers swept across overly exposed ribs. What he remembered was heat and want and the way Bucky’s tongue curled between his lips as they stumbled toward his bedroll. 

 

They had been a product of the world they lived in. A sense of urgency informed everything they said and did as the war marched on, and this was no different. When every breath held a distinct possibility of being one’s last, lingering over any one thing was a luxury they could ill afford. The rule held here too, where even the time it took to undress often fell outside the parameter of risks they were willing to take. After all, how could they justify taking pleasure in each other when the world was one bad call away from catastrophe?

 

The notions a person uses as guideposts have a funny way of reinforcing themselves. When Bucky fell, Steve only more obstinately threw himself into the breakneck pace of chasing down Hydra. He gave and he gave, and he told himself it was the only way. 

 

Decades of hibernation hadn’t convinced him otherwise. The disasters were different, but no less urgent, and living as if he were a breath away from dying kept the world together. It was a deep-set belief, and one he might have lived by for the rest of his life if not for one thing. 

 

There was no room in his worldview for second chances (not for himself, at least), but life didn’t seem to give a damn about the creed Steve lived by. It brought him war. It brought him destruction. Then, in the middle of it all, life gave him Bucky Barnes for a second time. 

 

Urgency and denial were useless things against the monsters Bucky was fighting. Where Steve would never adapt for his own sake, something gave in the midst of silence and faulty memories. He gave Bucky the time he never allowed himself, and little by little something shifted. 

The world sped up, and he slowed down. He learned to savor the moments between disasters. Somewhere, in a world where Bucky impossibly came back to him, Steve Rogers learned to  _ live _ .

 

\---

 

Even at the speed with which Steve ran, it was nothing short of a miracle that he escaped the blast. He could feel the concrete under his feet beginning to break apart, even as he leapt through the window. It was a long way down, and he was landing all wrong, but it was better than being crushed in the rubble.

 

The incline he landed on was somewhat of a blessing, sending him rolling rather than sprawling flat on the concrete. Debris splattered the grass around him, a sizable chunk colliding with his shoulder as he tumbled down the embankment. Even with the speed at which he healed, it promised to leave a mark for a while. The gunfire had subsided at least. Steve could only assume the enemy combatants went down in the blast. 

 

“Casualties?” he groaned into his comm. 

 

“No civilians were hurt as far as we can tell.” Natasha’s voice crackled in his ear. “Looks like Barnes got them all out.”

 

“Good going, Buck.” Steve scrubbed a hand over his face as he sat up, waiting for the dust to settle. He couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of him. 

 

No answer came, so he tried again. “Bucky?”

 

He was just about to call out again when he caught a glint of metal in the dust-filled air, far too shiny to be part of the building. Scrambling to his feet, Steve picked his way through the debris to get closer, enough that even the dust couldn’t hide Bucky, half-buried under a piece of concrete. 

 

“Bucky?” Steve’s heart was in his throat. He knelt at Bucky’s side, relieved to see his lover was breathing.

 

“Did we die?” Bucky squirmed under the concrete that was pinning him, groaning in what sounded more like annoyance than pain. Something gave in Steve’s chest as he watched Bucky shove his hand under the concrete and push the slab away. “Guess not. Not dying is good.”

 

“Not dying is ideal.” Steve grinned as he reached out a hand to help Bucky up. “I’d like you around for a long time.” 

 

“Steve. I’ve  _ been _ around for a long time. We’re practically ancient,” Bucky teased as he swept some of the dirt off his clothes. 

 

Steve nudged him as they shuffled back to the rendezvous point. “I meant with me.”

 

“Ugh. When did you get to be such a sap?” Bucky took advantage of the dust all around them to lean in, stealing a quick kiss. 

 

“That depends, Bucky. What answer means I get to blame it on you?”

 

It was everything and nothing like their Howling Commando days. The fighting for their lives bit wasn’t terribly unfamiliar, but the quiet between missions was a welcome shift. The tension Steve had always felt during the War, an uncomfortable thrum under his skin as he waited for the next attack, was almost entirely forgotten. Instead, he savored the quiet that came in the aftermath as they settled into their private semblance of normalcy. 

 

A shower, a debriefing, and an obnoxiously long quinjet ride later, they’d left the rubble of their last mission behind them, trading out for the door of the apartment they shared. They’d barely closed said door when Bucky was pinning him against it, roughly crushing their mouths and bodies together. 

 

“There’s no r...rush,” Steve murmured, breath hitching as Bucky’s teeth sank into the junction where his jaw met his throat. It wasn’t new. Bucky had always had this air of urgency, like they were running out of time. Frustrating as it was, the effects were unmistakable. The sensation pulled a shiver right through him, and his toes curled in his shoes… Shoes that he hadn’t even gotten the chance to take off yet. 

 

Steve buried his fingers in Bucky’s hair and tugged his lover up to meet his gaze, thoroughly enjoying the needy growl he got for his efforts. “The world isn’t ending tonight.”

 

Really, Steve wasn’t sure what he’d expected, aside from a reluctant agreement and a marginally slower pace. What he got for his trouble was a wicked grin in the weak light coming through the blinds. What he got was a gravely voice that  _ did things _ to him, whispering scant inches from his mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry Steve. Is this not your speed?”

 

Two could play that game. One did not know Bucky as long as Steve had and not learn how to go toe to toe with him. Steve smiled right back, fingers still tangled in Bucky’s hair. “I just thought it would be a shame for this to be over before it started.”

 

“Okay.” In retrospect, Steve should have known right then that this was the moment where he lost (in as much as anyone could lose where this was concerned). Bucky’s body language abruptly changed. His grip loosened, metal fingers easing up on Steve’s hip. The hand that had pinned Steve to the wall moved to cradle the back of his neck instead, and the kiss Bucky pressed to his lips was practically innocent. 

 

“Okay?” Steve clarified as Bucky took his hands and backed down the hall towards the bedroom. 

 

“Yeah. What did you expect?” Bucky lifted an eyebrow in a way that probably would have fooled anyone. Anyone who wasn’t Steve, at any rate. Plenty of things had changed about Bucky over the years, but that playful, feigned innocence wasn’t one of them. 

 

“You’re going to make me regret saying that, aren’t you?” Steve asked when Bucky let go to open the door. Of course, that didn’t keep him from stepping through the door after his lover. 

 

“Oh…” Bucky leaned in, and for a minute, Steve could hardly think. Somehow, the exaggerated slowness with which Bucky caught his mouth only made Steve’s heart race faster. It was lazy and languid, Bucky’s lips slotting against his like they’d been made to fit. Steve’s eyes slid shut as Bucky’s fingertips skittered down the ridge of his spine, drawing them subtly closer. Bucky pulled back just enough to speak. “ _ Absolutely _ .” 

 

The threat was lost in the moment, in soft kisses and straying palms that left Steve feeling pleasantly wobbly even as they steered him back towards the far end of the room. He could almost believe there were no ulterior motives to the way Bucky playfully pushed him against the bed they hadn’t slept in in days. Steve let himself fall and Bucky crawled over him, settling there nose to nose. He was so close, and so warm that it seemed very much that they were on the same sheet of music despite Bucky’s playful warning. 

 

The delusion was a foolish one, but Steve basked in it, taking the feather-light presses of Bucky’s mouth to his throat for nothing more than affection. His knees were bent at the edge of the bed, feet on the floor, and he used the leverage it gave him to toe off his shoes. He could feel the curve of a grin on Bucky’s lips as they fell with two thuds that seemed deafening in the near silence of their room. 

 

“In a hurry?” Bucky’s voice was a low purr, and the question was punctuated by heat and pressure as he suckled at Steve’s throat. Steve’s head tilted back in the bedding, offering up his neck in sacrifice to Bucky’s whims. He didn’t think for a second that Bucky was compromising with him, but either way, Steve went quite willingly. 

 

Only Bucky’s mouth on him was fleeting, and when he pulled into Steve’s line of sight, his grin was positively wicked. Bucky didn’t say a word, but he didn’t have to. Not when the way he plucked Steve’s shirt buttons out of their holes was practically clinical. It was going to be an awfully long night, Steve suspected. 

 

Steve shifted to wriggle out of his shirt, hoping it might move things along. Only Bucky seemed content to do little more than rake his eyes over Steve’s newly bared skin. Steve had always admired Bucky’s precision, but somehow it was less impressive and more frustrating in the moment, as Bucky rid him of the rest of his clothes without making more than the barest contact of fingers to flesh. 

 

If he’d thought complaining about their state of dress in relation to each other would have helped, Steve would have piped up. Bucky’s henley and jeans hadn’t budged an inch, much to Steve’s disappointment. Bucky wasn’t even looking at Steve as he managed to take his boots off excruciatingly slowly. Was that still teasing? Steve was beginning to think Bucky had taken a permanent vacation in the land of just plain mean. 

 

“You’re rotten. You know that, right?” Bucky did look at him then with a toothy smile that would have made Steve’s heart melt any other time. Any time, that was, where he wasn’t hard and naked and waiting for Bucky to stop teasing in retribution for Steve daring to tell him what to do. 

 

“Yeah.” Bucky tugged off one shoe and then the other before he deigned to stand up, unhurriedly pulling his shirt up over his head. It was practically impossible to do much complaining with a view like that, sleek metal giving way to a muscular physique Steve was hard pressed not to drool over. “You love it.”

 

“I love you.  _ Despite _ the fact that you’re impossible, not because of it.” They were talking. Why were they talking? More importantly, why had Bucky decided that disrobing required so much distance? He stood there, just out of reach of Steve’s legs as he shimmied out of his jeans and boxers. 

 

“That’s mean. Here, I was just about to tell you how pretty you are,” Bucky groused, though he didn’t actually sound like he cared in the least. Steve watched Bucky’s fingers slide over his chest and belly. He wished it was his mouth instead, making Bucky’s stomach muscles quiver, and drawing out that low, pleasured moan that bled off Bucky’s lips as he palmed himself. “I could probably be happy just looking at you.”

 

“Don’t. You. Dare.” The worst part was Steve knew Bucky was just riling him up. He wouldn’t really leave Steve hanging like that. Probably. Knowing that didn’t do anything to stifle Steve’s relieved sigh as Bucky slunk closer. 

 

“Are you done?” Steve asked, reaching out in hopes of coaxing Bucky back into his arms. Bucky took one step and then another, and the way he leaned in seemed very much like he intended to comply. 

 

Only, Bucky didn’t crawl back onto the bed. Instead, Bucky grabbed Steve’s hips and pulled until Steve’s rear was flush with the edge of the bed. The gravely tone of his voice shivered its way down Steve’s spine. “Not even close.”

 

“Bucky…” Whatever complaint Steve might have voiced died on his lips. For all Bucky’s tormenting, Steve was pleased to catch the flush that crept across his cheeks. He looked every bit as unwound as Steve felt, and good. It served the menace right. 

 

“Stay put.” It wasn’t an order by any means. What it was was a challenge, exactly the sort that Steve couldn’t bring himself to turn down. He shrugged as best he could as he settled at the edge of the bed, just a bit strung out already by the way Bucky looked sinking down between his thighs. Bucky was all flushed skin and pupils blown with want, tongue darting out to wet his lips. He looked utterly obscene, and how he could keep this up was nothing short of a mystery. 

 

Steve bit his lip and forced himself to look away. It was doing his self-control no favors.  “Do your worst.”

 

The answer Steve got wasn’t cheeky. It wasn’t even words. Bucky hummed in some semblance of agreement, pressing a slow, open mouthed kiss to the inside of Steve’s right knee. There was another and another, each just a little higher up, and when Bucky breathed, warm air washed over the dampness his kisses left behind. 

 

Steve didn’t even notice the way his body responded, as surely as if Bucky had had him on strings. His thighs parted in blatant invitation as Bucky mouthed at pale, delicate skin, metal fingers mirroring the path his mouth had taken on the other side. Teeth scraped ever so slightly at his flesh and Steve shuddered at the promise of it. 

 

He reached down, or tried to, instinctively reaching for Bucky. He was pushed away with a metal hand, accompanied by Bucky suckling at his inner thigh harshly enough it would have left a mark once. Bucky’s tone was playful, muffled against Steve’s leg. “I thought I said stay put.”

 

“Alright, alright. Staying put,” Steve conceded. Those were apparently the right words, because he was rewarded by Bucky rising up enough to nuzzle at the crease of his thigh. Bucky’s tongue came next, dragging languidly along his skin, close enough to make Steve arch up ever so slightly, but completely off center of anywhere useful. 

 

“Bucky…” Steve whined, letting his head fall back against the comforter. He’d created this monster. Surrender was quite likely the only way to dispel it, so surrender Steve did. When Bucky’s tongue flicked into the divot of his hip, he groaned and pressed upward a little, and when his lover moved on a moment later, Steve’s only protest was a soft anticipatory whimper, stifled by his teeth on his bottom lip. 

 

All at once, there was the heat of Bucky’s breath along the underside of his cock. Finally, he thought to himself, already grateful for the promise of something more than incessant teasing. Only, finally didn’t come. Bucky abruptly shifted, mismatched palms skating along the backs of Steve’s thighs to urge them upwards. A plea teetered on the tip of Steve’s tongue because there was teasing and there was just mean, and surely this fell on the latter side of that line. He never got the chance to voice it. 

 

The heat of Bucky’s mouth finally found him, but not in quite the way Steve anticipated. He looked up just in time to catch the wolfish grin Bucky flashed at him before dragging the flat of his tongue in a wet stripe over Steve’s balls. The change in sensation made Steve shudder, fingers clenching in the bedsheets as Bucky did it again. 

 

He reached out again, but Bucky made a playfully chiding sound, curling metal fingers around his outstretched wrist. Steve expected to be pushed away, but that wasn’t the case at all. Apparently, Bucky had other plans, guiding Steve’s hand to his own cock instead. Just as Steve curled his fingers around his length, Bucky sucked one of Steve’s balls into his mouth. Steve clenched his fingers in surprise and pleasure, jerking almost involuntarily upward.

 

 

They fell into some semblance of rhythm, but that had never been difficult where Steve and Bucky were concerned. Steve palmed at his cock, long, slow strokes that had him arching off the bed, and Bucky mouthed at his balls and the smooth patch of skin behind them. It wasn’t enough to push him over the edge, but it was more than enough to unravel him a thread at a time. 

 

The room would have been silent if not for the wet sounds of Bucky working him over, and his own stuttery breathing. Keen as his hearing was, there was no missing the telltale click of a bottle cap, and he whimpered audibly in something like relief. This was lovely, but it was going to kill him. 

 

This wasn’t exactly new territory for them. There’d been so much lost time to make up for, after all. Bucky’s slick fingers dragging along Steve’s perineum and then around the ring of muscle behind it was more habit than absolute necessity. Come to think of it, Steve was pretty sure that’s at least some of why Bucky bothered. 

 

“Wouldn’t you rather come up here?” Steve wheedled breathlessly as Bucky lifted up enough to mouth at the hollow of Steve’s hip. He tried to lift his head to meet Bucky’s eye in hopes of tempting him. Tried being the operative word. Bucky chose that exact moment to press smoothly inward. He mouthed the sensitive flesh between Steve’s thigh and pubic bone.  Between that and the way his metal hand closed over Steve’s knuckles to guide his movements, Steve was too undone to do anything but drop his head back to the blankets and tug at the bedding with his free hand. 

 

It was wonderful and terrible in equal measures, how well Bucky knew what made him tick. He hung there, two steps from release, caught between the way Bucky held his hand around his cock, and the insistent press of the digit inside of him. Left to his own devices, he probably would have tumbled right over the edge like this, but each time orgasm threatened to shudder through him, Bucky slowed down. 

 

“That the best you can do?” he finally murmured. Banter was a good way to egg Bucky into all manner of things. Judging by the little telltale huff that he felt as much as heard, it might work here too. The first finger was soon joined by a second, pleasantly stretching as Bucky scissored them apart. This was much more like it. 

 

“Excuse me?” Bucky went still between Steve’s thighs. The loss of friction pulled a helpless whine from Steve, but he pressed on. 

 

“At this rate…” Steve started, but Bucky never let him finish. Bucky forced Steve’s hand back into motion, chuckling at the way Steve’s complaint sputtered out. 

 

“ _ Someone _ said there was no rush,” Bucky teased, pulling his fingers all the way out before pressing them in again. 

 

“When I said slow down, I didn’t mean wait for me to die of old age,” Steve grumbled breathlessly. The words were uneven and stuttery as Bucky lazily pressed a third finger inside, crooking them just so. He couldn’t see, but Steve could practically feel the way Bucky was grinning at him. 

 

“Well, you should have been a little clearer, then,” Bucky bantered back, punctuating his retort with sharper snaps of his wrist that made Steve groan helplessly. It was the only indication he gave that he might be considering giving in. 

 

“I’m being clearer now,” Steve pleaded. He hissed through his teeth as Bucky leaned in, mouthing at his thigh with a thoughtful hum. 

 

“Well, that’s debatable,” Bucky murmured, lips brushing teasingly against Steve’s skin. “You clarified then, but this is now.”

 

Under any other circumstances, Steve would have happily traded barbs with Bucky. At the moment though, he was unraveled and wanting, every nerve on edge. Swallowing his pride, Steve squirmed in the sheets and pleaded. “Please, Buck.”

 

“Please what?” The fact that Steve half expected that didn’t make it any less frustrating of a question. His attempt to answer was sidetracked by the way Bucky plucked his hand from his cock. Before he could complain, Bucky’s mouth was bearing down on him instead, head bobbing in time with the fingers inside of him. 

 

Instinctively, Steve clutched at the bedding. Bucky’s mouth was overwhelming heat and pressure that left Steve seeing stars. Bucky’s cheeks hollowed out around him in a way that made his toes curl as he dug his heels into his lover’s back. He could tip over the edge like this and that would be the end of it, that wasn’t what he’d wanted. Unraveled and teetering, he curled his fingers in Bucky’s hair and tugged. “Stop and come…here, you idiot.”

 

All at once, Bucky’s fingers slipped free, and he let Steve’s length go with a soft pop. Steve half expected to be pressed about what it was he wanted, but Bucky didn’t ask. Instead, Bucky was crawling up over Steve’s body, only stopping when they were nose to nose. Where he’d seemed positively wicked before, his expression now was nothing but fond. 

 

“What?” Steve started, but the word was cut off halfway with a tender kiss that had nothing at all in common with all with the teasing Steve had endured until now. 

 

“Nothin’. I just don’t think you were actually asking me to slow down is all,” Bucky replied, the words hardly more than a whisper against Steve’s lips. 

 

“No?” Steve wanted to argue, but Bucky was peppering kisses along his jaw and throat that were strangely incongruous with everything else. Instinctively, Steve tilted his head back, offering up the rest of his neck. “What was I asking?”

 

“I think you just wanted it all sappy.” Despite Bucky’s teasing, there was no hint of mockery in his tone. If anything, he sounded pleased as he spoke softly against the shell of Steve’s ear, fingers brushing along Steve’s stomach in the scant space between them. 

 

“Not being in a hurry doesn’t have to be sappy,” Steve countered breathlessly, as Bucky picked that moment to curl a still-slick hand around his cock and stroke it a couple of times. 

 

“I know.” Bucky’s lips were over his again, and Steve melted hopelessly against the sheets. They were good like this, tangled up like one creature. “I know that. That’s why you should have just  _ said _ so.”

 

“I’m saying so now.” Steve’s voice rose at the end, as if the statement were a question, but Bucky didn’t seem to care. Whatever contradiction was in his delivery, it netted him another kiss as Bucky shifted to free his hands and nudged Steve’s thighs further apart. 

 

“ _ Finally _ .” Steve wanted to be irritated that Bucky had known all along. He wanted to be annoyed that Bucky had put him through all that just to make a point about semantics. Steve didn’t get much chance to be annoyed about anything because the head of Bucky’s cock nudged against his entrance, and then Bucky rolled his hips forward and nothing else seemed terribly important after that. 

 

Wound up as Steve was, he might have been fine with hard and fast and sailing over the moon before he had the chance to breathe. Bucky wasn’t in any hurry though. The way Bucky rested on his metal arm brought their bodies flush as he slowly canted his hips forward. Steve gasped as Bucky shifted the angle ever so slightly, but any sound he made was swallowed by the way Bucky’s mouth pressed to his, tongue urging his lips apart. 

 

They’d maybe taken the long way around this point, but it was well worth it. Steve instinctively tried to slide his hand between their bellies, but Bucky beat him to it, flesh and blood fingers dragging along Steve’s length from root to tip. All but overwhelmed, Steve sucked in shallow, gasping breaths in the scant moments Bucky left him the room to do so. He pushed his fingers through Bucky’s hair, the softness of it a detail that stuck out pleasantly in the onslaught of warmth and pressure. They were at their best like this, nose to nose, and almost silent save for the shuddery cadence of their breathing.

 

This was what he’d wanted, when it came down to it. Their life was rough and tumble and violent, and sometimes he thought Bucky forgot there could be anything else. Only maybe not, because Bucky hadn’t sped up. He rolled his hips in slow, smooth movements that threatened to unhinge Steve entirely. 

 

“Steve… I…” Bucky murmured urgently between kisses, shivering with the obvious effort it took not to pick up the pace. It was a sentiment not lost on Steve, and maybe that was what it was that sent him falling over the edge. 

 

Whatever self-control Steve had chose that moment to abandon him. He arched upward, pulling bow string-taught as the world fell apart around him. Distantly, he was aware of the way Bucky coaxed him through it, a hand relentlessly working him over until his stomach was hopelessly sticky and warm. More distantly, he was aware of the way his muscles pulsed around Bucky, and the disjointed, frantic way Bucky rocked his hips. He was far too boneless to do anything to help, but the pleasant fog in his head did nothing to keep him from appreciating the way his name sounded when Bucky gasped it out again and again like a prayer. 

 

For a few blessed moments, nothing mattered beyond the satisfying way Bucky collapsed against him, and the mismatched, gasping breaths they took. He half expected a complaint about the way they were a little bit stuck together. Bucky only face-planted against his throat, purring contentedly when Steve’s fingers found their way into his hair. 

 

“Okay.” Steve was reasonably sure that was what Bucky had said anyway. It was slurred ever so slightly, and muffled by the way Bucky had settled against him. 

 

“Okay…let’s go again? Okay, we need a shower? You’re going to have to be more specific,” Steve prodded, nails scritching fondly at Bucky’s scalp for the pleased hum it dragged from his lover. 

 

For a minute, Bucky didn’t seem inclined to answer. Steve had just about given up when Bucky spoke up. “I guess sappy is good too.”

 

“You know, we could have skipped that part where you were being a menace,” Steve teased, hoping the words came out in a manner that made sense. 

 

Bucky made a soft, affronted noise against the crook of his neck. “You complaining?”

 

“I would  _ never _ .”

 

\---

 

“You’re not even watching this, are you?” Steve leaned comfortably into the corner of the couch where he was sitting. The corner of his mouth turned up as he watched Bucky valiantly trying to stay awake through the end of the show they were watching. As soon as Bucky had chosen to make a pillow out of his lap, Steve had known they weren’t finishing. Granted, he probably wasn’t helping, dragging his fingers through Bucky’s hair, but it was a cathartic sensation, one he was pretty sure he enjoyed as much as Bucky did. 

 

“I’m awake!” Bucky protested, opening his eyes comically wide to prove the point. 

 

“Mmhmm.” Steve huffed out a laugh as Bucky rolled onto his side, as if hiding his face would keep Steve from noticing him dozing off. 

 

“Shut up. There’s dialogue,” Bucky grumbled, the words already softening. Steve didn’t have to look to know Bucky’s eyes were half closed, or that in about thirty seconds, his breathing would even out. He didn’t mind, when it came down to it. That this happened at all was a small miracle. It hadn’t been so long ago that a night like this had meant Bucky stiffly sitting at the other end of the couch, listening for any hint that they were in danger. 

 

These moments in between, where they could forget about Hydra and aliens and the whole world falling sideways were the bits he was learning to cherish. Steve Rogers had learned to live, and little by little, it seemed that maybe Bucky was learning too. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come find us on Tumblr! We're [DrowningByDegrees](drowningbydegrees.tumblr.com) and [Vibraniumkink](vibraniumkink.tumblr.com) respectively.


End file.
